Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

They are taken from the Paris books (1936) and (1938) and were for the most part, written at about the satire time as --the period of Miller's and Durrell's life in the famous Villa Seurat in Paris. As is usual with Miller, these pieces cannot be tagged with the label of any given literary category. The unforgettable portrait of Max, the Paris drifter, and the probably-autobiographical , are basically short stories, but even here the irrepressible vitality of Miller's personality keeps breaking into the narrative. And in the critical and philosophical essays, the prose poems and surrealist fantasies, the travel sketches and scenarios, Miller's passion for fiction, for telling the endless story of his extraordinary life, cannot be held down. Life, as no other modern author has lived it or can write it, bursts from these pages--the life of the mind and the body; of people, places and things; of ideas and the imagination.

Review

Review

Review

"Henry Miller is the nearest thing to Céline America has produced.... He aims not at the ears. brains or consciences, but at the viscera and solar plexus." The New Leader

Synopsis

This collection, first published by New Directions in 1939, contains a number of Henry Miller's most important shorter prose writings. They are taken from the Paris books Black Spring (1936) and Max and the White Phagocytes (1938) and were for the most part, written at about the same time as Tropic of Capricorn--the period of Miller's and Durrell's life in the famous Villa Seurat in Paris.

Synopsis

As is usual with Miller, these pieces cannot be tagged with the label of any given literary category. The unforgettable portrait of Max, the Paris drifter, and the probably-autobiographicalTailor Shop, are basically short stories, but even here the irrepressible vitality of Miller s personality keeps breaking into the narrative. And in the critical and philosophical essays, the prose poems and surrealist fantasies, the travel sketches and scenarios, Miller s passion for fiction, for telling the endless story of his extraordinary life, cannot be held down. Life, as no other modern author has lived it or can write it, bursts from these pages the life of the mind and the body; of people, places and things; of ideas and the imagination. "

About the Author

Henry Miller (1891-1980) was an American writer and painter infamous for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of "novel" that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is distinctly always about and expressive of the real-life Henry Miller and yet is also fictional. His most characteristic works of this kind are Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, and Black Spring. His books were banned in the United States for their lewd content until 1964 when a court ruling overturned this order, acknowledging Miller's work as literature in what became one of the most celebrated victories of the sexual revolution.